2 Things
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: Zoro contemplates the things he does for his captain. Then he has a conversation with Rayleigh about what it means to be a first mate.


_Author's Note: Yes, I have a whole Luffy needs more love thing going on right now. Blame it on Marineford. Also, I have no idea what to classify this as... Romance? But it isn't, not really... Family? But it isn't, not really... General makes it sound like a gen fic, but it also really isn't that... *has a headache*_

_On that note, one-sided Zoro/Luffy and one-sided Rayleigh/Roger._

**2 Things**

As far as Zoro was concerned, there were only two things that he knew without question that Luffy would never hear from him.

One was what had happened with Kuma on Thriller Bark.

There were several levels of reasoning behind this first incident. The shallowest of them was the matter of Zoro's personal pride: to tell Luffy would be to expect something in return, which had not been Zoro's intention.

On a slightly deeper level, he worried about the damage that the knowledge might do to Luffy's mentality. Since meeting Aokiji after the Davy Back Fight, Luffy had been pushing, pushing, pushing himself to his limits in his desperation to keep the forces of the world from taking any single one of them away from him. If he learned that he had almost lost one of them anyway, when he was lying unconscious only a small distance away... This conviction only hardened with Ace's death. Luffy did not need to be reminded of what he would view as his own failures.

But underneath that all was an undertow so powerful that the first time Zoro touched upon the thought, it swept him through to the end of the train of thought, and he could do nothing to stop it. It was the memory of his agreement with Luffy on the day that they had joined hands and formed the Straw Hat pirates.

_On the day when you interfere with my dream_, Zoro remembered saying, _I'll have you repent with a sword through your stomach._

_Naturally_, Luffy had replied with a grin.

Zoro wondered if the memory would come back to Luffy if he ever learned what Zoro had done that day. He wondered if Luffy would remember those words and take up a sword. He wondered if his captain would be able to accept that Luffy's dream had become more important to Zoro than his own.

The other thing was what had happened in Muggy Kingdom.

Zoro knew, on some level, that if he shared his thoughts with one of the other crew members—Usopp, Franky, Chopper or Robin, that is, since Nami and Sanji were out of the question and he almost thought that Brook might understand, but he couldn't be sure—then they would doubtlessly agree with him on the first thing, if only to spare Luffy's sanity, but find the second slightly puzzling. But to Zoro, the second was far, far more deeply affecting.

The thing was, to Zoro, it was easier to give up his promises and dreams and lay down his life for a captain to some unknown enemy that he couldn't defeat. To lay down his promises and dreams and fall to his knees before the man he hoped to defeat one day and beg for guidance required actually taking his dreams in his own hands and holding them out to be mocked and ridiculed forever—because no matter how many days, months or years went by, he would always have been a pupil of Hawk-Eye Mihawk. When the day came when he defeated the man, he wouldn't just be a man who defeated the best swordsman in the world—he would be a pupil of the best swordsman in the world who turned around and bested his teacher.

Most importantly, though, if Luffy heard about Zoro bowing before Mihawk and begging for instruction, he would _know_. No one would have to tell him that Zoro would lay down his life for him in a heartbeat, because Zoro held his pride higher than his life and if he was willing to lay down his pride for something—someone—then he most certainly could and would lay down his life for the same cause a thousand times over.

Luffy valued his crew's dreams, and expected them to value their own as much as he valued his. On some level, Zoro realized that one of the reasons why they had connected so well that first time they'd met had been their shared ambitions to stand atop the world. The others had dreams as well, passionate ones, but none of them had made Luffy swear not to interfere. None of them had made Luffy stand and watch from the sidelines as they almost died for their dream.

Something, Zoro felt, would change if Luffy found out. Something between them would have to shift, and Zoro wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

But then he had stepped into Shakky's bar for the first time in two years, and after the typical pleasantries and confirming that no one else had arrived yet, Rayleigh had fixed him with a speculative look.

"You were tossed over to Hawk-Eye's place, weren't you?"

"Yeah—how'd you know?" asked Zoro. Rayleigh ignored the question.

"You begged him to teach you, didn't you?"

Zoro froze and stared at the man, eyes narrowing as he wondered how far this man had guessed. Rayleigh grinned.

"I was coaching your captain for a year and a half—I tell you, I feel like I've known you for years." His voice was teasing, but Zoro filled with dread.

"Luffy knew-"

"Not that you got sent to Hawk Eye, and the rest was my own speculation. I may not be very good at reading a woman's heart, but I know what it means to be a first mate."

"I'm not his first mate. I'm just his swordsman."

"Do you know what the difference is between a comrade and a first mate?" asked Rayleigh. Zoro furrowed his brow and said nothing. Rayleigh did not appear to expect an answer—he continued. "A comrade loves his captain and wants to do his best for him, but ultimately knows that the captain will protect him. A first mate is in love with his captain, and will do absolutely everything in his power to keep his captain happy. He'll protect his captain and everything that his captain holds dear to the death, whatever the cost."

"Wait a second," protested Zoro. "You make it sound like I- or you-"

"But we do, don't we?" said Rayleigh. Zoro had no reply. "Is there anything you wouldn't do if your captain asked you to? I know there wasn't anything I wouldn't do. He told me to watch over his successor for him—so I do."

Zoro contemplated this. "But first mates are the ones that our captains really take for granted."

Rayleigh grinned. "Aren't we? It's like they think they can give us a ridiculous order—like watch the world in the decades after my death—and relax, because they know we'll follow through."

Did Luffy ever ask him to do anything that wasn't ridiculous?

But ah—he said, "Cut this train," and Zoro did. He said, "Help that enemy of ours instead of me for no good reason," and Zoro did. He said, "Wait two years even though my heart is bleeding over my brother's death," and Zoro did.

"I guess we do, at that," said Zoro with a wry smile.

"You'll find, Zoro," said Rayleigh, "that the Pirate King's first mate is the best job in the world. He'll always look to you, trust you, rely on you, love you—but it's also going to hurt like hell, because he'll never guess the depth of your love for him."

"Isn't that the way it's supposed to be, though?" asked Zoro without a hint of regret, raising an eyebrow at the Dark King. "What would be the point, if he were devoted to anything but his dreams?"

Rayleigh laughed. "You're a first mate, alright! Title or no title, it's all the same."

Zoro rolled his eyes. "If that's all, I'm going to go fishing or something."

"Off you go, then," grinned the first mate of the former Pirate King as the first mate of the future Pirate King turned and walked back out the door. Only after the door closed did his grin fade. "May you have better luck than I."

"Seems like you've had a hard time of things," said Shakky lightly from behind the bar."

"Can you imagine," said Rayleigh, "what it's like to continue to do the bidding of a dead man for ten times the amount of time that you knew him?"

"You said it yourself: that's love," said Shakky, as patiently as if she'd answered the question a hundred times.

"It is, at that," sighed Rayleigh, and downed a shot of whiskey.


End file.
